


The Beginning Of The End

by roughlycut



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Feelings, I've never played Overwatch, Inspired by Twitter, M/M, Mild Gore, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 19:30:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8502535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roughlycut/pseuds/roughlycut
Summary: We think we've come so farOn all our lies we dependWe see no consequenceThis is the beginning of the end- NIN





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've never ever played Overwatch, but I saw [this prompt by v0002187 on twitter](https://twitter.com/v0002187/status/795018224412852224) and just couldn't resist.

A strong smell of something burning reaches Reyes before he even gets close to the interrogation room. He’s purposely falling behind, putting distance between himself and Lacroix, while absentmindedly running his hand over his left arm, feeling the thickened scar tissue under his shirt. He’s smelled something like this before, slightly sweet and completely nauseating, but under much different circumstances. Now, here, it doesn’t come from a close encounter with burning debris and grenades. This is not a battlefield, no. This is intentional, premeditated. The result of an act meant to persuade a person to talk, by any means necessary.

Lacroix stops in front of an anonymous looking door, muffled sounds of footsteps and laughter coming from the other side. She glances back at him as he stops a few steps behind her and gives him a little smirk before entering, leaving the door open behind her. Reyes always feels uneasy around her, alert and on guard. There is something about her, the way she acts around other people, around him. Subtly manipulating those less aware, those unfortunate enough to mistake her kindness for genuine.

He takes a step towards the open door, but hesitates as he hears a burner being turned on, the click and hiss as the gas is ignited. There’s a rattle of restraints as the person strapped down inside the room, without a doubt, struggles to get away from the flame.

Reyes has never witnessed one of these interrogations, only seen reports and a few photos, but Lacroix had apparently felt that now was the time. She had dragged him from practice, her stern look and tone of voice leaving no room for debate. Up until now he never thought he’d be in a position where he was required to watch someone getting tortured, let alone torture someone himself. Not that he would mind, should it be asked of him, but he much preferred not to. Sure, he could apply the pain necessary, but the words were tricky, it was all about the phrasing. Torture was too up close and personal for him, too intimate.

A loud muffled scream fills the air, tearing Reyes thoughts from the theory of torture, and canceling out the sizzling sound of hot metal against skin. The smell gets stronger, making his eyes water and his stomach churn.

“Get in here!” Lacroix voice sounds annoyed as she’s doing her best to speak over the noise coming from inside the room. A loud clang of metal and of heavy footsteps, mixing with the still going muffled scream, now slowly dying out and turning into a sobbing whimper. Reyes clenches his fist, attempting to ignore the now all consuming smell of burned flesh, and takes the last few steps into the room, closing the door behind him.

*

He’s not sure how long he’s been sitting there, on the chair in the corner. The first minutes inside the room is a blur, his vision and his hearing failed him as he did his best to keep a composed and cool exterior. Reyes have seen his fair share of injuries, of amputations and open wounds, of humans blown to pieces. He’s seen the documentation of the torture that’s taken place within the interrogation room, he knows their methods, how they judge if they should start out with torture or with questions. But this, this he wasn’t prepared for, this he couldn’t have prepared for.

_Jesse._

Reyes had made a small weak noise in the back of his throat as his brain had caught up with his eyes, registering who exactly the man strapped to the chair in the middle of the room is.

Jesse is almost naked, stripped of his shirt, belt, pants and boots. Large leather straps in place around his ankles and wrists, the edges digging hard into his skin, bruises forming. Across his chest, reaching out over his biceps and going around the back of the chair, is a broad rubber strap. It keeps him in place, without limiting his breathing, ensuring that he won’t pass out. A blindfold covers his eyes and a dirty piece of cloth has been stuffed into his mouth, stretching his pale chapped lips open.

His skin is wet with sweat, hair sticking to his forehead and cheeks. There’s bruises on his stomach and arms. A hint of dried blood in his nostrils. It looks like he’s taken a beating before getting strapped down. Of course Jesse had put up a fight, of course he had struggled and resisted. But not anymore. Now he lays there, barely moving, not even registering the addition of two people to the room, even though it’s dead silent around them.

Small cuts, placed with surgical precision, are spread out on his naked thighs. Small lumps of dried blood tangled in his leg hair, except for the places where it seems to be missing all together, the skin there oddly shiny and rosy. The little finger on his left hand is missing, a once white piece of fabric, but now a deep red, tied around the place where it’s supposed to be. His left arm is practically an open wound, older burn marks overlapping with fresh new ones. The skin wrinkly and bubbly in places, pink mixing with yellow puss and blotches of old blood. Reyes realizes, with horror, that Jesse has probably been on the base for days.

“Continue,” Lacroix says, her voice cold and unamused. Jesse stirs in the chair, a pained noise seeping out through the cloth in his mouth. The interrogator turns his back to the room, fiddling with something on the table in the corner. The small clangs of metal instruments make Jesse tense his shoulders, makes his breathing speed up.

Reyes knuckles turns white as he grips the armrests on the chair, trying to steady his own breathing, trying to forget that it’s Jesse in the chair, beaten and bruised. There is no way Lacroix hasn’t noticed the change in his behavior, his reluctance to look anywhere but on the wall behind the scene. It’s getting dangerous fast, the situation being too much out of control for his liking. He’s just about to talk when the interrogator turns, cattle prod in hand.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Lacroix says as she leans back in her chair, obviously enjoying the choice of instrument.

The interrogator smiles, baring yellow teeth, as he runs the device across Jesse’s abdomen, causing him to flex his muscles and resume his fight against the restraints. Reyes can see tears spilling from under the blindfold, drawing patterns on Jesse’s cheeks. He feels nauseous, his eyes stinging with held back tears, as the cattle prod is turned on. One, two, three times, and then the interrogator takes a step back. Jesse yelps with each zap and throws his head back, his chest rising and falling rapidly. It’s repeated a few times, Jesse’s body tensing up even more after each cycle. Reyes have forgotten how to breathe, his eyes fixated on a spot somewhere behind the interrogator.

 “Can’t stomach it,” Lacroix suddenly asks, sounding almost amused. Reyes doesn’t even dare to turn and look at her, afraid of what she will see in his eyes. He swallows and tries to put on his best poker face.

“Just don’t care much for torture is all,” he grumbles, ignoring the way Jesse turns his head slightly at the sound of his voice, “just wondering why he’s here and why I have to see this. Obviously he’s not talking.”

Lacroix laughs, hollow and fake.

“Oh Gabbi, he’s already talked,” she says and turns fully in her chair, looking straight at him, “but he’s still here because there is something we want _you_ to tell us.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is very different from the other things I've written, but I actually really liked writing torture. I might do a second chapter?  
> I'd be very happy if you left a comment, just a little something about what you liked in the fic, if there is anything you think was interesting or something I could improve on.


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